Film / Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers

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"I prayed that he would burn in hell. But in my heart, I knew that hell would not have him."

— Dr. Loomis

Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers picks up right after the events of the previous film, where Michael ends up shot by Illinois state troopers and left for dead. Despite those efforts, Michael Myers lives — and after a year of rest, he rises again to go after his traumatized niece Jamie (Danielle Harris) — who now shares a eerie psychic link with Michael — on Halloween, with Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) once more in pursuit.

On top of Michael's continuing quest to kill his family, a new mystery shows up in the form of a man in black who watches the night's events unfold from afar...

The film is the least successful entry in the Halloween franchise, grossing a very modest $11 million, and going straight-to-video overseas. It also performed poorly with critics and audiences, sending the franchise back into Development Hell for many years before 1995's Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers.

Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers contains examples of the following tropes:

Air-Vent Passageway: When Jamie tries to escape through one, Michael proceeds to relentlessly stab the outside of it.

Berserk Button: Mikey is utterly obsessed with his car and flips out when Michael scratches it. Unfortunately, him going to attack Michael seals his fate.

Big Damn Heroes: The cops showing up at the store before Tina gets back in the car with Michael.

Big "NO!": Jamie lets out an absolutely heartrending one when she stumbles on Rachel's corpse in the Myers' attic.

Covers Always Lie: The poster shows Jamie in her clown costume from the previous film, but she doesn't wear it at all during the movie (not counting reused scenes from said previous film).

Crying Wolf: Spitz dresses up as Myers and chases Samantha and Tina with a fake knife, angering the cops who come to their rescue. Later, when the real Myers comes out of the barn after killing Samantha and Spitz, the cops assume it's another joke and don't realize it's for real until it's too late.

Dead Man Honking: Subverted. After Myers' car crashes into a tree. Initially, the three people he's been pursuing are relieved at the sound of the car horn, assuming this trope. Their facial expressions turn to horror when the noise stops, revealing that of course, Myers has survived.

Defiant to the End: Samantha tries to fight back against Michael with the very pitchfork he used on her boyfriend.

Don't Go in the Woods: Michael chases the protagonists into an eerie, foggy woodlands with a car. When he crashes the car, he gets out completely unscathed and proceeds to stalk the victims through the forest with a butcher knife.

Downer Ending: Michael is eventually captured by Dr.Loomis who seemingly dies at least till the next one but the man in black frees him and kills all of Haddonfield police. The last shot shows Jamie (who has lost just about everyone she has care for by this point) sadly muttering "No" as she sees that Michael has escaped.

Every Car Is a Pinto: Michael chases the protagonists in a car. Even though the car is barely going at a running-pace, it still explodes when it collides with a tree. Though this does add to the creepy factor when Michael nonchalantly gets out of the car completely unscathed.

Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: The Man in Black just shows up on a bus. While it's clear he has a connection to Michael (both have the same tattoo), who he is and what his motivations are remain unknown when the movie ends. Word of God has admitted they had no idea who the character was when making the movie.

Heroic Sacrifice: Tina sacrifices herself to give Jamie a chance to get away from Michael.

He Who Fights Monsters: Almost. Dr. Loomis is ready to use blackmail, threats and physical force to make sure Michael is gonna be put down. It goes so far that he uses Jamie as bait to lure Michael into a trap, and then beats him savagely with a plank until he's unconscious, yet he continues to beat him, all while screaming "DIE! DIE!" for each hit.

Hope Spot: Rachel is apparently saved from an attack by Michael when Dr Loomis phones her and warns her to run out of the house, and the police even get involved. Turns out it was a Cat Scare and Michael does some slashing when everyone's gone.

Michael crashes his car trying to get Jamie. His body is pressed up against the steering wheel, so the horn is blaring while the characters heave a sigh of relief. Then the horn stops and the car door opens...

Michael is locked in a cell and one of the officers is going to take Jamie home. Then the Man in Black shows up and everything goes to Hell.

Left Hanging: The Man in Black for one. Also, Loomis is last shown having a stroke and collapsing on Michael. While few believed he died, it was nonetheless curious that none of the other characters addressed it onscreen.

No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: After Dr. Loomis tranqs and drops a chain net on Michael, he proceeds to relentlessly wail on him with a two-by-four.

Never Trust a Trailer: The advertising repeatedly claimed that we'd get to see Michael unmasked in this film. Not only was this never really that big of a deal since he'd been clearly seen unmasked in the original film (both as a child and an adult), when he eventually does unmask himself he does so while in the shadows, so we never actually see anything of interest.

There is a Freeze-Frame Bonus moment near the beginning of the movie, when Michael wakes up in the hermit's shack. With the hermit in the foreground, an unmasked Michael, in the background, sits up. Even though he is in a dark corner, if you look closely you can see his face clear enough to see him glance at the hermit, then his mask which is hanging nearby.

Not Now, Kiddo: Tina doesn't take Jamie seriously when Jamie begs her to stay, though this is because she thinks Dr. Loomis' obsessive nature has made Jamie needlessly paranoid.

Parental Substitute: Nurse Patsey has been acting as one to Jamie ever since she started living at the children's hospital, and is one of the few sources of emotional stability Jamie has known since the previous Halloween.

Peekaboo Corpse: Done when Jamie finds the body of her adoptive sister Rachel.

Series Continuity Error: In the original Halloween, the Myers house is a modest two-story home. In this movie, it's a huge, Gothic-style mansion. Then when we get to the next film, it's back to being a typical two-story house that still looks completely different from what we saw in the original film. At the time these movies were made, they were on the same continuity as the first one, so there's no excuse for the discrepancy.

Word of God is that they couldn't find a matching house like the one from the original film, so they went with the big mansion because the plot required it.

Shooting Superman: This trope gets referenced in the commentary track - in a scene where a cop clumsily shoots at Michael, one of the commentators mentions that, as a lifelong resident of Haddonfield, the guy should have realized shooting Michael just pisses him off.

Stealth Hi/Bye: Micheal pulls off some pretty epic ones. He kills Rachel, but hides the evidence and himself so well that Tina has no inclination of what's happened when she stops by and he manages to get Rachel, Max, and Mikey's body to the attic in the Myer house with no one seeing him.

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